On Friday 28th November we will be joining the call for a UK Stop Arming Israel day of action, to pressure UK companies and the government to end all military cooperation with Israel. Our target is HP, one of the top 20 armament companies in the US with arms sales worth $3 billion in 2011. Hewlett Packard with its $6 billion investment in Israel, provides the IT backbone for the entire Israeli war machine - from the army, to the navy, to the Ministry of Defense. As HP's London HQ is closed on Saturday 29th (the actual day of action) we will be protesting there on Friday 28th.

Please join us this friday as we continue the campaign against Hewlett Packard, demanding they end their complicity in Israel's war crimes, dungeons & torture dens, and apartheid.

Please note that with the sun now setting at 4pm we have brought the protest time forward to 3pm.

BACKGROUND - HEWLETT-PACKARD

HP is more than an office supplies and printers company, they are one of the top 20 defense contractors in the US with arms* sales worth $3 billion in 2011. They specialize in developing the IT infrastructure that is essential for the military to function.

Whilst Hewlett-Packard(HP) operates in 178 countries around the world in HP's own words "Israel is one of the few countries where HP has a massive presence.. In the past decade, HP has invested over $6 billion in the acquisition of Israeli companies, including the establishment of production plants.. HP is the second largest investor in Israeli IT."

HP provides IT backbone to Israeli Military

In 2011 HP won Israel's largest ever servers tender, worth an estimated $140 million. Under the tender HP implements and manages the entire server farm of the Ministry of Defense and the Israeli army for 5 years (contract ends in 2016). Those HP servers form the IT backbone of the entire Israeli war machine making HP complicit in Israel's war crimes.

HP has been equipping the Israeli military since 2006 when it was first contracted to provided the IT infrastructure for the Israeli navy, a virtualization project which was used by the Israeli military as a pilot for implementing the same system to the entire army. HP is thereby assisting the illegal naval blockade of Gaza which also began in 2006. In 2009 HP won the contract to supply all computer equipment to the Israeli military. In another contract HP supply configuration management database system for the Israeli Army's secret IT unit. Currently HP is implementing and assimilating an enterprise resource planning and management system for the Israeli Army (2011-2015).

HP helping Israels dungeons and torture dens to operate

Hewlett Packard is also providing essential IT services and infrastructural that enable the Israeli Prison Service (IPS)** to function.

Everyday Israel abducts and cages 2 children as young as 12 years old. Human rights groups have documented the brutal torture of children as standard practice during interrogations in order to coerce confessions, usually to stone throwing which carries a sentence of up to 20 years imprisonment. Today there are over 6000 Palestinian political prisoners, including women and children, imprisoned by the Israeli Prison Service - many locked up without even a charge let alone a trial. 72 Palestinian prisoners have been tortured to death in Israeli prisons since 1967. The latest being father of five young children, Raed Abdul-Salam al-Jabari, who was died following interrogation at Eshel prison on 9th Sep 2014. he had been arrested over a simple car accident involving an illegal Israeli settler. The IPS claimed he had comitted suicide by hanging himself in his cell but the autopsy revealed he had been savagely tortured with repeated blows to the head and face causing brain hemorrhage. His neck showed no signs of hanging.

In an ongoing contract (until 2016), worth millions of dollars, HP provides the Israeli prison service the systems and servers needed to keep it operational. In 2012 HP provided the central servers for the operational system of the IPS ("Tzohar") and its ongoing maintenance. In a contract worth $35 million, HP developed the Kidma information system for the IPS which includes the prisoners management system and intelligence subs systems, helping the occupation keep illegal records on Palestinians it has abducted and their families. HP has also executed a project for e-mail storage and archive for the IPS.

HP helping the occupation implement apartheid

HP has developed and maintained the Basel System - a biometric access control system with hand and facial recognition, which is used by Israel at illegal checkpoints deep inside occupied territory to restrict and control Palestinian freedom of movement in their own land. It forms part of the separation wall apparatus declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.

HP also provided services to the illegal settlements, in particular Modi'in Illit and Ariel. This includes a data storage system for the municipality of Ariel as part of the "Smart City" project.

*Arms sales defined as goods & services designed specifically for military purpose and doesn't include general purpose equipment like office computers. Figure may be underestimate as it doesn't include classified contracts. Src: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

**We would especially like to thank WhoProfits.org for the research they have conducted on HP, in particular their freedom of information requests that have revealed the extent on HP's complicity with the Israeli Prison Service.

WANT TO SET UP YOUR OWN PROTEST AGAINST HEWLETT-PACKARD?

Apart from London HP has UK offices in Bracknell (HQ), Bristol, Warrington, Erskine and Belfast. If any local groups want to set up their own protest at any of these locations please contact us, we can try and help with resources (leaflets, etc).

LIVE UPDATES DURING PROTEST

We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. The hash tags will be #StopArmingIsrael and #BoycottHP So if you can't join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.

If you support this activity please share this alert widely, thank you.

JazakAllah,

Abbas Ali

Palestinian Prisoners Campaign
www.inminds.com/caged

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The Palestinian Prisoners Campaign aims to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinian prisoners and build solidarity for their struggle and work towards their freedom. The campaign was launched by Innovative Minds (inminds.com) and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (ihrc.org) on the occasion of Al Quds Day 2012 (on 17th August 2012), since then we have held actions every fortnight in support of Palestinian prisoners, if you can spare two hours twice a month then please join the campaign by coming to the next action.

"[Deportation at the airport] We saw the injured [Turkish] men going through.. a lot had a leg cut out of their trousers or an arm cut out of their top. It had been cut out to treat their wounds.. they were covered in blood, blood that had been there for three days, and some of them had wounds that were still bleeding.. What upset me most was seeing the dozen men, one after another, hobbling across the terminal, with a bandaged foot. I couldn't ask them why so many of them had a bandaged foot, I couldn't ask them what had happened, because if they spoke or if any of us spoke to them the Israelis beat the injured person.. We later found out that they had these injuries on the tops of their feet from when the troops came down from the helicopter on the Mavi Marmara, and they came down firing - they had been shot from above. Some of the men that were killed were shot at close range - head and chest, but a dozen of the men who were shot, among 59 people who were shot, they were shot at the tops of their feet - the bullets were coming down.. They weren't given a wheelchair or a pair of crutches, and if any of the other passengers stood up and tried to offer [help].. that person was dragged away and smacked by these Israelis. The Israeli soldiers sat on the floor, laughed and sniggered and made every one of these Turkish men hobble and hop all the way across, some 200 metres, everyone of them, one by one, made to do that purely for the sick amusement of the Israeli soldiers."